Farmers lift blockade after negotiations

BATALA : After day-long negotiations with the agitating farmers, who had blocked the Batala-amritsar railway track since Thursday afternoon for their pending sugarcane payments, the district administration managed to pacify the farmers and restored the traffic on this track after many of the their demands were fulfilled.

Till Thursday, the administration had failed to pacify the farmers after which, Gurdaspur deputy commissioner (DC) Vipul Ujwal along with Batala sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) Rohit Gupta met the protesting farmer unions, who denied lifting the blockade until their demands were accepted.

In an attempt to end the stalemate, the officials of the district administration as well the officials of two cooperative sugar mills and private sugar mills held closed-door meeting with the leaders of Kissan Majdoor Sangharsh Committee and by 6.30 pm on Friday, Kissan leader Sarwan Singh announced that the blockade will be lifted as the administration accepted most of their demands.

Talking to mediapersons, Sarwan said that out of ₹88 crore pending payment from three mills, the administration had released ₹10 crore while the second installment of ₹21 crore will be paid by October 31 and the rest will be released by November 15.

Demanding immediate release of arrears of sugarcane growers, hundreds of farmers under the banner of the Kisan Sangrash Committee were holding a dharna at Batala on Pathankot-amritsar railway track and blocked the movement of trains on this route.

Officials said, the blockade led to the cancellation of more than a dozen trains on the route.